Chapter 963: The Days When Sun Erlang Was Away (Part 2)
laugh……
Royal jelly mixed with various flavors dripped from a dozen strings of deer lips, and clouds of sweet and fishy warm mist rose from the fruit charcoal.
Banhe, a servant in Yihong Courtyard, covered his mouth and nose with a handkerchief and carefully turned the grill over. Seeing that the deer lips were already crispy all over, he quickly picked up a dagger made of cow leg bones. Because two slaves [Mingyan and Qiu Wen] had killed their masters in succession in the mansion, the control of these pointed and bladed instruments was extremely strict. Unless necessary, they would be replaced by wooden, bamboo or bone tools in front of the master.
No matter how hard the cow bone is carved, it is not as sharp as metal. Banhe finally cut a slit in the deer's lip. Seeing that the color, fragrance and taste were all good , he turned around and shouted, "Saohong, are the things ready? The bastard in our pond is probably more skillful than you!"
“Here it comes, here it comes!”
Saohong rushed out of the small kitchen of Yihong Courtyard carrying a half-bucket of hot tea. She rushed over in a few steps and kept complaining, "I'm in charge of the fire on the stove. What's the point of you urging me all the time?"
As he spoke, he put the bucket in front of the grill, picked up a strange-looking object from the side, and inserted it into the half-bucket of tea.
This thing is a round wooden board on a long handle. The wooden board has the same diameter as the inner diameter of the bucket and has countless small holes on it. When it is inserted, the layers of tea leaves are immediately pressed to the bottom of the bucket.
The tea in the bucket was already very strong, and after being squeezed, it became like a turbid black soup.
Upon seeing this, Banhe hurriedly took off the deer lips and dipped them all into the tea, stirring it for about half a cup of time. Then he put them back on the grill and turned them over quickly to dry out all the tea stains.
Saohong, who was standing next to him, was also busy. He put seven or eight dishes and bowls of condiments into the tray. After Banhe finished cleaning up, they rushed to the pavilion in the northwest corner together.
But I saw that the pavilion was full of people.
The chief host was the owner of the place, Jia Baoyu, and on his left and right were Qiu Yunfei, Feng Ziying, Wei Ruolan, Xue Pan, Liu Xianglian, and Jiang Yuhan.
Ban He and the other man presented the deer lips, but no one else paid any attention to it, except Xue Pan who stood up, scooped up half a bowl of chili powder and poured it in without caring about anything.
Liu Xianglian hurriedly pushed him away, scolding him with a bad smile: "Last time I went to your house for a drink, my tongue almost fell off from the spiciness! How come you, a fool, still want to do something bad when you come to Brother Bao's place?"
Xue Pan grinned, put the bowl of chili in front of him, and sneered, "Old Xue has good intentions, but I don't get any complaints - forget it, it's just right that you don't want to eat it. I still think it's not spicy enough."
As he spoke, he grabbed a bunch of deer lips, bent the skewer in the pepper bowl, dipped it repeatedly, and chewed it with a humming sound.
"You have to say that my second brother has a good eye. Others treat it like a flower, but he chose this treasure at first sight! Now I, Old Xue, can't live without it for a day - it's just that I ate too much, and my buttocks are rotten..."
"Close your ass eyes!"
Qiu Yunfei, who was standing beside him, heard him talking more and more vulgarly, so he quickly interrupted him and asked, turning his wine glass, "Has anyone listened to the new short plays published by Shufangzhai?"
Shufangzhai is one of the largest booksellers in the capital, and it is also a place to listen to stories and historical events.
"Brother Qiu, are you talking about the scene where 'When faced with a crisis, Sun Erlang single-handedly saved Qianxiang; when entrusted with the care of an orphan, Jia Sanjie supported the young master from behind the curtain'?"
This time, the one who took over the conversation was Jiang Yuhan, who was sitting at the end of the table. He was smiling and waving his folding fan. There was more heroic spirit in his eyes and brows than two years ago, and he no longer looked submissive.
"Haha, Boss Jiang is really well-informed."
Qiu Yunfei laughed and turned to look at Jia Baoyu who was sitting at the head of the table: "What the book says is very mysterious. Brother Bao, do you know that my second brother is in the south? How did it happen? Why did the Queen Mother Wang come with the bride?"
Seeing that everyone's attention was focused on him, Jia Baoyu wiped his hands with a handkerchief and said seriously, "Brothers, you really asked the right question. I didn't know much about it a few days ago, but I got some inside information the other day."
"I heard that at the wedding banquet, the treacherous minister Nguyen Phuc Trung gave an order and countless rebels swarmed in. They first killed Queen Qian Huong and then sent people to the harem to search for the third sister and the crown prince."
"Thanks to my second brother's prompt decision, he helped her and her husband escape from the encirclement. With the help of Ruan Liangshun, the Minister of Finance of Qianxiang State, they escaped from Qinglong Mansion."
"Later, my second brother, under the name of the crown prince, called on civil and military officials from all over the country of Qianxiang to come to the king's defense and protect him, while at the same time contacting the troops of our Great Zhou. With the attack from both inside and outside, he not only thwarted the conspiracy of the treacherous prime minister, but also designed to lure and kill nearly 10,000 elite soldiers of the Zhenla Kingdom."
"After the rebellion was quelled, the crown prince ascended the throne as a matter of course. However, he was unlucky and died just a few days after ascending the throne."
"Luckily, he had a bastard son, so somehow, my third sister became the Queen Mother of Qianxiang Country."
After this was said, everyone sighed in regret and couldn't help but secretly investigate the unknown cause of the incident.
Apart from other things, the fact that the Crown Prince of Qianxiang died after achieving success and allowed outsiders to control the government was too strange no matter how you think about it.
I don't know whether it was Sun Shaozong's idea or Jia Tanchun's attempt to murder her husband...
But no one would say such things explicitly.
Besides, what does it have to do with everyone whether the king of Qianxiang is dead or alive?
"Come!"
After a while, Feng Ziying suddenly stood up from the table, holding up a half-cup of old wine, and said with emotion: "Let's not talk about other things, let's congratulate the second brother first!"
Everyone responded with a roar and raised their glasses to drink.
As soon as he sat down, Xue Pan picked up a skewer of deer lips and dipped it in chili while laughing, "With the Queen Mother and the Prince, Brother Bao will be able to eat both north and south from now on. I, Old Xue, will also..."
"Brother Xue!"
Wei Ruolan interrupted him hastily and changed the subject: "I heard that your Tongzhengsi is going to publish a legal newspaper recently, collecting cases from recent years so that local prefectural and county schools can study them?"
Because he had been a prisoner in jail for more than two years, he was much more cautious than others.
Others also knew that this was a critical moment for the storage change and they naturally did not want to get involved in this mess, so they all chimed in and asked about the Legal Daily.
Xue Pan rarely had the chance to show off in official business, so he threw what he just said out of the window, and said proudly while tapping the cup and plate with chopsticks: "This is also the work of my second brother. At that time, the legal education was sent to the countryside... Because of my relationship with my second brother, this task fell on me, Old Xue... From now on, all the weaklings in the country will depend on me..."
Baoyu was listening to him talking eloquently when he suddenly caught a glimpse of Xiren wandering outside the pavilion. She seemed to have something to report, so he quietly stood up and went out to meet her.
"Second Master, two messengers came from Shuntian Prefecture and asked Lord Qiu to return to the yamen as soon as possible to discuss matters."
"Meeting?"
Jia Baoyu looked at the setting sun in the sky and suddenly remembered something. He hurriedly asked, "What are we discussing now? Could it be that some big case has happened again?"
“It doesn’t look like it.”
Xiren shook her head slightly, then hesitated and said, "It seems...it seems that there is an epidemic in the city."
